New Zealand Wine

New Zealand Wine

New Zealand has only recently started to emerge on the global wine lists. However, it didn’t take long for it to gain recognition for having some amazing white wines and highly complex red wines. Whether it will ever be as big as Australia remains to be seen, but they are trying really hard. The production is incredibly diverse, and there are over 1,000 miles in the wine regions of the country. This means that various climates and soil conditions are used. There are some 400 wineries now, which is a huge increase from the 150 there were just ten years ago.

New Zealand Wine HistoryWine has been produced in New Zealand since colonial times. However, New Zealanders have always had more of a penchant for spirits and beers. Plus, because of the prohibition, wine never really took off. However, when Dalmatian immigrants moved here towards the end of the 19th century, vineyards suddenly started to appear, as people required table wines, sherries and ports.

Bring Your Own licenses were introduced in the 1960s, which made wine more culturally acceptable. When Britain entered the EEC in 1973, New Zealand’s trade terms changed on meets and dairy, which lead to a restructuring of the agriculture in the country. So, pasture areas were suddenly used as vineyards.

Besides this, Kiwis started to travel to Europe in the 60s and 70s and they brought home a love of wine from there. So, by the 1970s, Marlborough wine started to produce. It took only around ten years for the area to create an award-winning Sauvignon Blanc, which made wine even more popular in the country.

Suddenly, people started to pay attention to New Zealand wine and more money was injected into the industry. More wines started to be produced, more vineyards were planted and the viticulture industry really took off. In fact, this movement became so big that there was some over planting. Hence, in 1984, growers were paid to pull some of their vines out, as damage to wine glut was starting to occur. Because of the fact that the government intervened, the local wine industry was able to recover quite quickly. Since then, the industry has truly boomed and New Zealand is now one of the most respected wine producing countries in the world.

Besides the fact that the wine industry is a really good economic boost in terms of local sales and export, it has also given a boost to the tourism industry, with many different wine tours taking place all year long.